WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 45, 17 November 1925, Page 8

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM ‘

(By

T.D.H.)

Even Houdini, the handcuff king, would be hard put, one would think, to equal the exploit of the unfortunate prisoner at the Terrace Gaol who was left in a strait-jacket, handcuffed, and with his feet bound with a leather strap, and was found half-an-hour later strangled with the strap that had been left around his feet. This is the most mysterious occurrence at the Terrace Gaol since that August Sunday morning fourteen years ago when loseph Powelka disappeared without a trace from the specially-constructed condemned cell and has never since been heard of. The cell was not as specially strong as it should have been at the moment, however, for the observation window was loose in its frame, the covering door over it had been left open, and a door across the corridor leading into Woolcombe Street and liberty was also conveniently unlocked, while outside was the friendly gloom of 4 a.m. on a winter’s morning.

Powelka’s escape created a great stir, as it was the fourth and final escape of a series extending over a period of six months. He was a young man ot twenty-three, and got into trouble m March, 1911, on a housebreaking charge at Palmerston North. At the lock-up there he asked permission to go out into the yard, and promptly scaled the fence and got away. He was captured two days later at Ashhurst. Then the following month he escaped from the police station cells while awaiting trial, and was pursued with great hue and erv at Palmerston North, two.’persons being fatally shot in the tall y- b °’ Powelka was again recaptured and sentenced to twenty-one years imprisonment on a long list of charges and declared an habitual criminal. For a month or two the Terrace Gaol held him successfully, but on August 18 he cut through the window of his cell and escaped in broad daylight into the premises of Mr. W. H. Bennett, next door to the gaol, being shortly afterwards recaptured hiding under the house. . After that he was put m the condemned cell, next to the prison office, s ° as be under close cbservation, but ten davs later there wasn’t anything to observe, for Powelka, as re ated has vanished into thm air, and despite the sixty policemen told off to scour the countryside for him, his subsequent history is riddle. One of the most daring escapes on . record was that of Lord Nithsdale from the Tower of London the night before r.:_ execution. It was after the bun gled Jacobite rebellion of 1715, wba " numbers of Jacobite peers were locked up in the Tower, and the Government, after wavering, finally decided to execute the Earls of Derwentwater and Nithsdale and Lord Kenmuir On Thursday, February 23, 1716, the Lord Chancellor signed the war, ants their execution on the Saturday. Derwentwater and Kenmuir duly lost their heads, but when the guards arrived to summon Nithsdale to the scaffold they found that he was gone. The story of his escape is told by Mr. J° bn Buchan in his "Book of Escapes and Hurried Journeys.”

This achievement of spiriting a condemned man out of the Tower of London. with its walls within walls, and endless guards, was the work of the twentv-six-vear-old Countess of Nithsdale In mid-winter, when the news ot the rout at Preston’ came, she realised that her husband was doomed as a Government prisoner. She and a Weisn maid took horse and rode and coached to London through mid-winter snowdrifts the coaches abandoning the ioumev in places. When she got to London Walpole refused to let her see her husband unless she was prepared to share his captivity to the end. This condition she declined, os to do anything she must be free. At last she succeeded in bribing the warders and getting in. A glance around the quarters showed that there was no chance of an ordinary escape. If Lord Nithsdale was to get out it must be by ths door. That in turn was strongly guarded. A halberdier and two sentires with fixed bayonets stood outside the chamber, and the stairs and outer approaches were equally well held.

The human element, however, was weak. The Lieutenant of the Tower, trusting in his walls, was inclined to be negligent. The prison rules were often disregarded, and the wives and children of officials wandered about the passages at will. This gave Lady Nithsdale her plan. She proposed to her husband to dress him up in cap and skirt and false curls, and pass him as a woman through the warders. Lord Nithsdale, who was a much duller witted person than Ins wife, thought the scheme crazy, and at first stubbornly refused to be’ rigged up like some 'figure of fun and made a laughing stock. With a sword in his hand he might do something, he thought.

' In the end the courageous lady got a ladv friend to help, and also the stout and large landlady of her lodgings in Drury Lane. The three of them set off on the Friday afternoon on what was nominally Lady Nithsdale’s farewell visit to her lord. One of the ladies with her she called “Mrs. Catherine” and the other “Mrs. Betty,” and the whole point of the proceedings was by sundry comings and goings to get the sentries thoroughly confused as to who had gone into the chamber and who had come out of it, and in the dusk Lord Nithsdale, with a hood and wig and petticoats, was to depart as Mrs. Betty. The ruse succeeded completely. Lady Nithsdale stayed behind imitating the heavy walking of her husband up and down the room. Then, opening the doorwav, and standing so that the crowd in the corridor could hear, she bade her husband good night with every phrase of affection. “I pray you do not disturb my lord" she said to the sentries. “Do not send him candles unless he calls for them. He is now at his prayers.” The. unsuspicious sentries saluted in sympathy, and meantime Lord Nithsdale was posting along the Dover Road in the dress of a Venetian servant bound for Calais. King George was very angry when he heard of it. But the royal anger was short-lived. Presently he began to laugh. “Upon mv soul,” he said, “for a man in my lord’s position it was t*e very best thing he could have done.

Office Girl: Yon can’t see Mr. Blod--Bet . , , ' Caller: Is he in conference? “No, he’s busy.” IN A CATHEDRAL. “I worshipped in a foreign land, And though I might not understand The ceremonies of the priest, Nor follow in the very least The pleadings of his chanted prayer, Yet other wordless voices there Spoke to me from the distant years, Years rich with labour, love and tears, Carved pillars that for .centuries Had listened to men’s prayers and cries, A shrine where the Madonna stood, As pitying all womanhood; The living sunlight on the gloom Of some Crusader’s grey stone tomb, Upon the dark Cathedral wall \bove the War Memorial Two faded, tattered banners hung— Though alien I was among Things that still make our common Love’ e faith, joy, suffering and strife.” -E. D. E., in the “Glasgow Herald